1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an information processing apparatus and an information processing method for handling a plurality of item settings altogether when arranging the settings by use of a device that executes a specific functional process on the graphical user interface. The invention also relates to a storage medium that stores the procedures of such process.
2. Related Background Art
In general, the information processing apparatus, which can communicate with the device that executes a specific functional process, is able to effectuate various settings though the user interface. In recent years, such device is made to handle many setting items, and plural setting items are registered altogether when each of them has complicated relations through which the items are dependent with each other among themselves. Then, the user selects the complex setting thus registered to make it easier to change the plural items at a time.
Now, for the printer driver manufactured by Canons Inc., for example, it is made possible to change settings by selecting each icon suitable for the desired print object from among a number of icons arranged as a set for the items related to the print quality or the like, such as the transformation of True Types, with respect to the graphic mode, resolution, colors, and fonts. However, other items than those mentioned above, such as the size of input paper, the size of output paper, the type of paper feed, the type of paper discharge, the required number of printed sheets, the page layout, and other physical settings, are not made available in such icon arrangement. Therefore, each of these settings should be performed each individually.
When printing should be performed in several kinds of specific formats in a bank or in an insurance company, for example, it is inconvenient if settings should be made individually per paper sheet to be used, information of paper feed, and some related items.
Now, conceivably, it may be, possible to deal with all the items as the registration objects. Then, there is an advantage in the settings of the items referred to the preceding paragraphs. However, when the icon thus arranged is selected only for the purpose to modify the print quality, the paper size, the paper feed method, and others should also be reset inevitably at all times. Then, such related items should be set again after all. This is extremely inconvenient. Also, if all the necessary setting items are registered altogether as the respective sets including the paper size, the paper feed method, and the related items thereto, the number of icons become so many that there is a probability that the system facility is made inferior on the contrary.
In consideration of the problems discussed above, the present invention is designed. It is a first object of the invention to provide an information processing apparatus having the registration of each individual icon that represents the combination of a plurality of setting items in each of the groups, as well as the registration of the combination of the respective individual icons together with the overall icon, and then, being made capable of selecting the aforesaid each individual icon thus registered, and the overall icon on the same setting selection display screen of the apparatus.
It is a second object of the invention to provide an information processing apparatus capable of making a desired setting from among the required several sets by substituting the basic settings (all-item setting) with the override setting which is prepared in advance for the arbitrary items along with the basic settings to deal with all the items.
Other objectives and advantages besides those discussed above will be apparent to those skilled in the art from the description of a preferred embodiment of the invention which follows. In the description, reference is made to accompanying drawings, which form a part hereof, and which illustrate an example of the invention. Such example, however, is not exhaustive of the various embodiments of the invention, and therefore reference is made to the claims which follow the description for determining the scope of the invention.